


conversations harry potter never had

by irnan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A compilation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Sirius.”

It was late, and he hadn’t been expecting anyone else to be up, and Harry’s voice behind him made him jump.

“Sorry.”

“S’all right. Siddown.” He yawned; not being able to sleep didn’t mean he wasn’t tired. “Cuppa?”

“Thanks.”

Harry had sunk into a seat opposite him, hair the usual mess, bruises under Lily’s eyes. Sirius had thought they were past this, what with Arthur being well again – and he was fairly sure that Ginny had given Harry a piece of her mind lately that had knocked some sense Harry’s way. Something about the way they’d looked at each other at dinner, and how Harry had smiled at her.

Well, he could wait for Harry to talk. He’d gotten good at waiting, first in one prison and then another. And anyway, Lily had been the same way, she’d let her troubles fall out of her mouth like leaves from a tree branch, casual and quiet, never before she was ready.

Sirius wasn’t sure how Prongs had been about talking about his problems, because he had always known what they were as soon as James had.

James and Lily’s kid in this dim hole of a kitchen, drinking tea with him in silence and smiling a bit.

Christ Almighty, he loved this kid. If anything happened to Harry, Sirius thought he’d probably off himself. He’d loved the baby this way, but Azkaban had put such dents in his ability to feel anything, and he’d thought of the child – the thirteen year old child – as an abstract, at least at first, James-and-Lily’s-child who needed protection from Wormtail. It was only in the Shack that the love he’d felt for the baby he remembered had come crashing back in on him, refocused on the reality of the teenager in front of him. Here was a person, whole and entire in their own right, and Sirius adored them.

It had probably happened around the time Harry had stunned Snape, he thought, and had to grin.

Harry met it with another.

“I think I’m gay.”

Sirius thought he was speechless.

“... huh.”

He dropped another lump of sugar into his tea.

“I thought you were about to come out and tell me you’d woken up just now and found yourself transformed into a giant snake.”

Harry snorted. “Would that be preferable?”

“No,” Sirius said. “Christ, no. I guess I’m used to worrying about other things.” His spoon clattered loudly against the tea mug as he stirred. “You think?”

Harry went red. “Well, it’s not like I’ve got... you know, tons of experience or whatever. I just – I mean I – I kissed Cho Chang, all right, and... yeah.”

Sirius laughed, and watched his goddaughter go even redder and push her hands through her hair. She’d lopped it off when she started playing Quidditch, she’d told him once, and he couldn’t imagine her with hair as long as Lily’s had been. That would’ve been a bit creepy. As it was, the shorter crop showed the lines of her face that James had given her and let a resemblance to both her parents come through.

“Our Hattie’s got a thing for Quidditch players,” he said.

“Maybe I do.” Harry was embarrassed but unrepentant.

“Hey,” said Sirius. “You goose. You know it doesn’t matter to anyone who matters, right?”

Pause.

“Hmm.”

Pause again. Sirius decided he really was going to have to state the fucking obvious.

“It wouldn’t’ve mattered to your Mum and Dad, either.”

Something in Harry’s shoulders unknotted. She nodded, properly, red hair flying. “Sorry,” she said. “Guess I’m being just as much of a prat as Ginny says.”

“It’s all right,” Sirius said. “I’m sorry they’re not here to laugh at you for thinking different.”

Harry smiled. “It was just – I kissed Cho, like I said. And Malfoy said something – I know, I know. He just said something about my parents turning in their graves or whatever –“

“One day I’m going to drown that little runt in a water butt the way Bella used to do with Cissy’s kittens,” said Sirius calmly. “Harry, c’mon. James and Lily worshipped the ground you... crawled on.”

Harry laughed.

“Anything you become short of a Death Eater would’ve made them happy as long as it makes _you_ happy.”

Harry pulled a face. “I don’t know if it’s gonna make me happy. I mean, Cho. It’s all sort of complicated.”

“See, this is excellent,” said Sirius. “This is the sort of thing I thought we wouldn’t get to do because you’re not a boy – talk about girls.”

Harry laughed again, loud as before, and threw a sugar lump at him. Sirius dodged it, laughing.

“So, first snog. And? What was it like?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of Dumbledore's dialogue lifted from _Philosopher's Stone_ \- alterations made, but still.

Harry blinked his eyes against the light and struggled to see. It wasn’t working. There was a shadow – voices – he squeezed his eyes tight and opened them again. Hah!

He flung a hand out to the right and felt his glasses under his fingertips. At the bottom of his bed, Professor Dumbledore was arguing with his Grandad.

“... here in the castle, and you let Harry get near him!”

“I am gaining the distinct impression, Edward, that whatever Harry wants to do, Harry does. _Let_ rarely comes into it.”

Dumbledore’s beard quivered with amusement.

“Just like his father,” said Granma. Oh, she was behind Dumbledore, she’d been talking to Madam Pomfrey. “Now, Ned. You know it and I know it and we have done since that boy was old enough to talk. Likewise,” and she cast a smile Harry’s way that made him feel like The Greatest Person Ever, “you know that Jamie would have burst with pride to hear about half the things he’s been up to behind our backs.”

Definitely The Greatest Person Ever. Making his Mum and Dad proud was pretty high up there on Harry’s list of priorities.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, “what about Ron and Hermione?”

Dumbledore and Grandad both jumped; neither of them had noticed he was awake.

“Mr Weasley is quite recovered, Harry,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “His injuries were not very severe, and he and Miss Granger have been quite worried about you. In fact,” he gestured to the table beside Harry’s bed, and for the first time Harry realised that it was piled with a veritable sweetshop, “half the school has been quite worried. Your friends Messrs Fred and George Weasley tried to send you a toilet seat, but I understand that Madam Pomfrey has confiscated it as unhygienic.”

Harry laughed. “And the Stone, sir? I mean – we wouldn’t be here if –“

“No, we certainly would not,” said Dumbledore quietly. “The Stone has been destroyed, Harry.”

Harry ‘s jaw swung open. “But sir! Nicholas Flamel...”

Dumbledore looked positively delighted. “Oh, you know about Nicholas? You did do the thing properly, didn’t you?”

“Gracious God,” said Granma, looking amused. “And there was me wondering about your sudden interest in alchemy last Christmas, young Master Potter.”

Harry grinned at her. “But there’s just – there’s one more thing.”

They all waited.

He drew a breath. “I know you won’t tell me why Voldemort wanted to kill me. I suppose I’m still not old enough.”

Cheap shot, and it was correspondingly ineffective.

“But why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?”

“Ah,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Well, Harry... that’s easy to answer. Easy, and the hardest thing to understand, for some of us. Your mother died to save you, Harry. To have been loved like that – loved so much – will leave a trace, a protection, in you for as long as you live. It is in your skin, your very blood. Quirrell, knowing nothing but hatred and greed, sharing his soul with Voldemort – who, Harry, has never understood love, and never will – could not stand to be touched by something so good. It was agony to him.”

Harry didn’t realise he was crying until Granma put her arms around him.


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s got my bedroom on it,” said Harry.

“Has it, love?”

“Mm-hmm. Mr H. Potter, Second Bedroom on the Right, Seven Holly Lane, Godric’s Hollow, Scotland.”

“That’s nice.”

“Mum, it’s like you don’t even _care_.”

Mum laughed. Harry always loved it when Mum did that, because it didn’t happen too often, and her hair sort of went everywhere and her face... it was hard to describe what laughing did to his Mum’s face. It was like it broke open, and all the fun and the love and the – the Mum-ness came out from underneath.

“I care,” she said. “I care more than anything.”

“About what? Morning, Evans.”

“Morning, Padfoot.”

“Sirius, it’s come,” Harry announced portentously.

Sirius fell into a chair at the kitchen table and raised his eyebrows. “Has it? Blimey. The way you were carrying on last week I was expecting it to arrive on August thirty-first.”

“You’re a git,” Harry said happily. Now that it was here, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to read it after all. It was _here_. That was the point. He got to sit here and turn it over in his hands and feel the smooth parchment and the faint dip where the pen had scratched green ink across it in the shape of his own name and address...

“Right about that. You want some?”

“Evans, sit down, I’ll get it...”

They shuffled around each other, pushing and laughing, until Mum sat in the chair Sirius had just left with her hands wrapped around her tea mug. When Harry had been very small, he’d asked them why they didn’t get married – Dad, he was sure, wouldn’t have minded a bit. But Mum and Sirius had roared with laughter: Of course he would’ve minded, Sirius had said, and Mum had said that even if Dad wouldn’t have, _she_ did.

So Harry had gone on having a Mum and a Godfather, which according to Remus was better than a Stepdad, which was what Lucy Parker at school had had when he’d asked about Mum and Sirius getting married.

“So?” Mum asked now. She was still smiling. Harry thought he wouldn’t open it as long as that made her smile so. She was so sad about Dad so often, and he knew he looked like Dad, and that that didn’t help.

Harry smiled at her. “I’ll open it,” he said. “In a sec.” He rubbed his thumb over the parchment again. Mr H. Potter.

“I’ll be a Gryffindor,” he said, “like you and Dad and Remus. Where dwell the brave at heart.”

“You’ll be whatever you want to be,” said Mum softly.

Harry looked up, and was glad that she was still smiling.

“That is what I want to be.”


	4. Chapter 4

"Tie him up and lock him in the bloody cellar," said Ron.

"I'm not sure there is one," said Hermione grimly.

Harry said nothing. Malfoy was watching him with wide eyes over the gag, but there wasn't much fear in them. In fact, he seemed almost relieved. He'd taken Ron's punch to the face after they'd landed here without even fighting back, although his pale eyes kept flicking to the wand Harry held.

"Will he kill them?" Harry asked.

Malfoy swallowed; his Adam's apple bobbed. Then, forcibly nonchalant, he shrugged.

Harry smiled, thin and angry. "Will Bella?"

That got more of a reaction.

"You hate her."

Look away. Ron and Hermione were flanking him, and Harry still held Malfoy's wand. Shell Cottage was silent around them, but the sea was not, and the sound of it was oddly comforting.

"Do you know what she has in that vault of hers?"

Malfoy shook his head. He jerked his chin, meaning clear: untie me. As far as Harry was concerned, he could die trussed to that chair. They'd bury him in a slagheap somewhere, as far from Dobby's grave as possible.

He undid the gag.

"I won't help you," Malfoy rasped. "He'll kill them."

"I plan," Harry said, and was vaguely surprised to find that he did indeed have a plan, and it was a fairly good one (for a plan of theirs), "to kill him first."

Malfoy went white.


	5. Chapter 5

  
"I don't suppose," said Aunt Petunia, mouth thinning, "that you could have the common decency to be Sorted into Hufflepuff."

"No," Harry said promptly. "I'm going to be in Gryffindor, like Mum and Dad."

"Oh!" She laughed, a bit helplessly, and shook her head.

Harry looked up from the map. "Are - are you scared?"

Aunt Petunia shrugged and shook her head, but Harry thought she meant yes. She didn't use magic very often, and when his Hogwarts letter had arrived she'd eyed it with an almost angry look. But magic hadn't killed Mum and Dad; Voldemort had done that.

"Just," said Aunt Petunia at last. "Just promise me something."

"Course."

"Don't be blind about Dumbledore."

"I thought he was brilliant," said Harry, puzzled.

"Oh, he is," said Aunt Petunia, and when they stopped the car at a red light she turned her head to look at him. She and Mum didn't look alike at all, but she crooked an odd smile when she met his eyes. "He taught Lily and me a lot, and I respect him, I do. But I don't want you to... you know, to follow him blindly."

Harry felt this was a bit much. He'd been to school and he knew how not to be a sheep. Also, there was this: "Like Mum and Dad did?"

"No!" Aunt Petunia said something unprintable about the car behind them and took the left turn, muttering. "No. I mean, oh, I don't even know. I don't always trust him is all. I don't think he does everything he does out of the goodness of his heart."

"Aunt Petunia," Harry said, "you don't really trust anybody."

Aunt Petunia made a dismissive noise.

"You _don't_."

"People are stupid."

"But Dumbledore isn't." _And neither am I, you're being unfair. (Neither was Mum.)_

"Oh, you should be in Ravenclaw," she said, huffing. "Don't cheek me, boy, it's a bad habit to get into just hours before the first time you meet Professor McGonagall. And - and I believe I've said this before, but it bears repeating - _stay away_ from Severus Snape!"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, as meekly as he could. He loved her, but sometimes it was just better not to start an argument.


	6. Chapter 6

  
Miraculously, the hospital wing has survived mostly intact. Harry picks his way through sleeping patients and forces himself to be relieved at every face he recognises instead of grieved at every face that's missing. He's none too steady on his own feet, and got down here mostly by leaning on Ron and Hermioone; they made a sort of six-legged monster, shambling along. But he needs to do this on his own: one last mission.

He curls his fingers around his holly wand for comfort and the joy of it, and thinks a bit ruefully that he's probably a far better duellist now he's got it back. His destination is a stand of curtains, a man heavily bandaged lying on a bed behind them.

"You'll live," Harry says dryly. "Congratulations."

Snape's mouth twists, as if, after all, he'd rather not. There's bitterness there and anger, as if expecting Harry to have come to gloat.

Harry's tempted to. He still hates the man from the bottom of his soul. Every detention, every humiliation: not just his own, but those of the people who've fought beside him and for him, who've died for him and saved him. Nev, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna, poor Colin Creevy... if Harry starts making the list he'll never stop.

"Thank you," he says instead.

Severus Snape still cannot talk, or even really move his head; Nagini's bite went too deep, and the bandages around his neck are stained with blood and precarious.   
His look, however, is poison.

Mum would've appreciated it, Harry wants to say, just to see his reaction.

"McGonagall and most of the rest of the Order are... are less than convinced," he said. "I'll see what I can do."

Snape flicks his fingers in dismissal. Don't bother. The contempt of it stings Harry sharply, sets a beat of anger in his blood. You live now because children died to fight a man you once called Master. I don't care how hard you worked to honour my dead mother's memory. Don't you dare be contemptuous of the living.

"Maybe I should write Aunt Petunia, and the two of you can... hug it out," he says. Snape's eyes widen sharply, and Harry grins a grin his mouth did not know how to shape a year ago. He taps his fingers against the bedstead; dried blood on his knuckles and scrapes across his skin. Every cut and bruise and burn throbs with pain in the same rhythm as his heartbeat.

"I'll come back," he says. "See how you're doing. Bring Ron and Hermione."

Snape's eyes narrow, furious.

Harry tilts his head so the light falls across his face and knows the other man can his eyes very clearly.

(Harry, be safe. Be strong. We'll stay with you, until the end.)

"Sleep well, Severus," he says quietly.


	7. Chapter 7

"You know," said Remus as Harry slipped the last roll of parchment into the visor of the last suit of armour, "I'm a bit speechless. I don't think even Prongs ever went this far trying to impress your mother."

Harry stepped back and snorted. "I'm not trying to impress her, Remus," he said. "I'm trying to beat her out before she wins this bet."

Remus settled against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and smiled in the darkness of the Transfiguration corridor. "I'm a little unclear on what the difference is."

"Look," said Harry, "the only thing that's ever impressed Ginny is Quidditch prowess. And I'm already the youngest Seeker in a century, so I reckon I've got that covered."

He said it with a jaunty flippancy that was simultaneously very unlike him and suited him completely; if he'd known how much he sounded like his father in that moment he might have smiled, but Remus kept the observation to himself, content to watch his best friend's son set up the last few things he needed for the spell and watch the shadows, aching that Sirius was not here with them, that James didn't know how talented his boy was, that Lily couldn't see how much he resembled her.

Harry stepped into the middle of the corridor and held his arms up, crooked at the elbow so his hands were level with his head.

He looked at Remus.

"It'll work," said Remus firmly.

Harry nodded. He looked back at the suits of armour lining the corridor, drew a breath, and snapped his fingers once.

Every suit in the corridor - in, as a matter of fact, the entire castle - lept to attention, saluted, and then fell back into its original position.

Remus started to laugh softly. "Mischief managed. Oh, I feel sorry for the McLaggan boy."

"Don't," said Harry. "He cracked my skull open and lost us a Quidditch match."

"Hah. Better be off. Filch won't be long."

"No," Harry agreed, drawing the Map out of his trouser pocket. "He's up by the Astronomy tower now... here, Remus." He turned to face him properly. "Thanks for this."

"Happy to oblige," said Remus. And it was true; he was. He'd caught a glimpse of Dora, enough to know she was well. He'd spent the night plotting an outrageous prank with his best friend's son and sneaking through Hogwarts in an Invisibility Cloak, and he'd gotten to hear Harry's laugh again, a rare thing indeed since Sirius had died. He'd even managed a few himself.

"Listen, Harry," he said suddenly. "About what we talked about - at Christmas."

Harry looked up. "Er - yes," he said. "I don't - I mean." He drew a breath. "Sirius was right last year. I can't sit still for it, Remus, you understand that? And I can't trust him, either."

"He hates you; that's not a thing to trust past. I do understand. But _I_ trust _Dumbledore's_ judgement in this," Remus said quietly. "Despite everything - or perhaps because of everything. But Harry: I didn't mean to - to be sharp with you about it. If anything happens - if you need me - I'll come, as fast as I can."

Harry's crooked smile flashed in the moonlight. "I know that," he said. "Thanks, Remus."

Remus gripped his shoulder in farewell. "I'd better go," he said. "Let me know how the conga line turns out, ey?"

"I will," Harry promised, grinning. "I'll write every detail."

"I'll see you soon, Harry."

Remus turned before he could change his mind - given the choice between Harry's (Dora's) company and Greyback's... well. He slipped along the corridor silent as the boy who'd followed James Potter's lead from prank to prank to skirmish to battle, and as his hand fell on the bannister of the staircase that would take him down to the main hall and the front doors of the castle he'd always thought of as home, he heard Prongs' voice behind him, low and firm.

"Take care, Moony."


	8. Chapter 8

"Dad! Dad, I'm on the Quidditch team, Dad!"


	9. Chapter 9

"So I was thinking," said Ginny, dropping into a chair opposite him.

"Think away," said Harry. He was rubbing at his aching head and frowning at his Transfiguration essay, which was currently being as mocking and inscrutable as Slughorn's bloody patched-over memory.

"We should go to Hogsmeade next weekend and sort out the twins' birthday present."

"Hmm," Harry said. "Good plan. I've got about as much of a clue as Arnold the Pygmy Puff."

Ginny laughed. Harry finally let himself look up at her; her flowery shampoo-smell lingered around the library table, and she was windswept and smiling.

Dear God, let her not notice how much he wanted to kiss her.

"Me either, crikey. I'm this close to falling back on makeshift cardboard crowns."

Harry's turn to laugh. "All right. We'll do it."

"Next Saturday?" she said. "At one?"

"It's a -"

He caught himself just in time, except not, because she was grinning like the cat that got the cream, one elbow propped on the table top, her chin in her hand.

"- date?"

"Gin," he said, feeling a bit panicky, and remembered too late that no one called her that, except for him, and only sometimes, and specifically only sometimes in the privacy of his own head where he was free to imagine himself calling her that when she was windswept and smiling and not wearing much of anything at all, let alone Quidditch robes.

But she was still smiling, and he put his quill down.

"Gin?"

"That's my name, Harry," she said, knowing perfectly well it wasn't. "Don't wear it out."

For a moment Harry teetered on the edge of making as much of a fool of himself in front of Ginny as he ever had in front of Cho, but sometime over the last year his Gryffindor courage had steadied his nerves a bit, and anyway this wasn't Cho: this was Ginny, who never cried at anyone, and who'd laugh at the idea of being jealous of his friendship with Hermione, and who could match him blow for blow in any game he'd care to name: emphatically not just Quidditch.

"I don't think I ever could," he said, and had the pleasure of watching her blush.

"So I take it," he said when she met his eyes again. "I mean. You're single."

Ginny's eyes widened. "Well, I know I was hoping for a different conclusion to the conversation, actually."

Ring of a challenge in her voice.

"Look, the last time we had a conversation in the library we got chased out of it and I might still have the bruises," said Harry. "I'm not going to snog you in front of Pince."

The words gave him a jolt, but it was far too late to take them back, and anyway he didn't want to, however strange it was to realise he was actually genuinely talking like that to the girl he - _well_.

Ginny's smile was beginning to remind him of the Cheshire Cat's. Harry wasn't sure when he'd got the urge to kiss it right off her face, but it was getting pressing.

"She's gone for her daily liasion with Filch in the upstairs broom cupboard," she said, grinning, and Harry leaned across the table and caught hold of her shoulder and yanked her, a little ungracefully, forwards for a kiss.

They really did get chased out of the library again; Harry had known it was pushing their luck when Ginny climbed into his lap like that.


	10. Chapter 10

"And that is that," said Aunt Petunia. There was a note of sarcasm in her voice that Harry didn't quite recognise - she usually ran to plain furious instead.

He didn't turn round, preferring to carry on shovelling his school things into his trunk.

"What did you want, a leaving settlement? I can arrange for that. I don't know if you ever stopped hating Mum long enough to find out, but she and Dad had more than enough money."

Stupid, stupid, he'd been keeping that a secret so long it was second nature. But it hardly mattered now, did it?

He glanced at his battered watch. Ten more minutes.

"Vernon is having apoplexia in the kitchen, you know."

"I don't care." Harry was beginning to realise he found her calm more frightening than he had ever found her anger since he was a small boy. The space between his shoulder-blades itched and his fingers were stiff with the effort it was taking him not to reach for his wand.

His trunk lid crashed down, and Harry locked it with a snick. His jacket - his Firebolt - Hedwig in her cage. What else? He did a three-sixty turn, checking for forgotten possessions, but apart from piles of Dudley's old clothes and the screwed-up balls of half-written letters in the bin under the rickety desk, there wasn't a thing left in the room, and certainly nothing he wanted to take with him.

He had his back to Aunt Petunia again. Bad situation. Harry knew so much about not letting them see you were afraid that he'd almost forgotten how to be.

He faced her. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a grim, pinched look on her face; skirt, apron, hair pulled tightly back. Harry was suddenly aware that this might be the last time they ever spoke.

It felt _brilliant_.

"Where will you live?"

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

"He can be... unpredictable."

Harry's fists clenched. "You knew who he was when he was on the telly."

"The way I understood it, he killed my sister."

"You're thirteen years too late to start pretending you ever gave a damn about her. Or me."

Aunt Petunia opened her mouth, and for a moment - just a moment - there was something quiet and vulnerable and anxious about her, and Harry was a split second away from saying sorry, from asking what his Mum had been like, from saying something genuinely mad like come with us.

"You've got her eyes," she said.

Harry swallowed. "Yes."

"You know that?"

The Mirror of Erised, and a lonely boy in a darkend room with it, night after night.

"Yes."

Aunt Petunia nodded. It was a jerky sort of nod, fierce. "Our Gran would have said that the other thing you have is a mouth like Tynemouth."

For the first time in his life, Harry laughed at something she'd said; it coincided with the sharp ring of the doorbell, and then the front door jumping open. Downstairs, Dudley yelped, and another door slammed - presumably the kitchen one.

Aunt Petunia stepped out of the doorframe silently.

"Harry!"

A man's quick footsteps, the creak of his weight on the stairs. Harry jumped to the door, dragging trunk and cage and Firebolt awkwardly, feeling his mouth stretch into the widest, most delighted grin it had ever worn.

"Sirius," he said.

His godfather caught him in a quick fierce hug, and Harry smelt soap and oil and apples; it hit him with a jolt that he was going to spend the rest of his life getting hugged like this - birthdays, Christmas, coming home from Hogwarts for the holidays.

He fisted his hand in the back of Sirius' shirt and swallowed what was basically a sob. Sirius bent over him and Harry felt his godfather's breath stir his hair, the hand on the back of his head, holding him close and steady.

Then they drew apart, and Sirius reached past him and grabbed his trunk.

"Last words, Tuney?" he said, deceptively casual.

Aunt Petunia's mouth thinned. Sirius', on the other hand, widened into something resembling a snarl.

"She'd kill you for this."

"She's dead."

"It's all right," said Sirius. "I'll represent her if it needs doing." His hand on Harry's shoulder tightened and steered him away, down the stairs, along the hall; Dudley had cracked open the kitchen door and was peering out, but Harry was too busy lugging his things and (embarrassingly) clinging to Sirius to spare his cousin more than a cursory glance as goodbye. Out into the sunshine. They were doing it. They were really doing it. Sirius was here and he was free and that thing he'd used to dream of in the cupboard, that impossible nonsense of someone who loved him coming to find him and take him away, had, incredibly, happened.

Once for practice, twice for good.

"You haven't told me where the house is yet," said Harry, blinking back tears in the fierce summer light. There was a disgusting wobble in his voice.

"It's a way off," said Sirius. "I'll Side-Along you. Oh, by the way, I sort of... arranged for Ron and Hermione to come by next week. If you don't mind."

Harry looked up at him and saw he was grinning a bit.

"Sounds like fun," he said, struggling not to whoop.

Sirius pressed him close again, just quickly. "That's what I thought. And Moony said he'd come over. And there's someone else I want you to meet - my cousin Andromeda. But that's not for a couple days. Right at first it's just going to be you and me, all right?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, that - great."

"Right then," said Sirius. "Happy birthday, Harry."


End file.
